Thursday

The true face of the moon is first seen as Galileo Galilei in Padua, Italy, turns his telescope toward it for the first time and makes a drawing to record his discovery. Galileo's revolutionay treatise Starry Messenger, which appeared the following March, showed an astonished public that the moon was a cratered world, a new land to be explored.

China Says It Will Land a Probe on The Far Side of The Moon in 2018

In what will be a first for science, China has announced its intention to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon, exploring lunar territory that has never been seen up close by human eyes.
The new mission will see China's Chang'e-4 probe investigate the dark side of the Moon in 2018, according to a report by Xinhua, the state-run news agency. While the dark side of the Moon has been observed from orbit and photographed, it's never been explored by human astronauts nor landed upon by spacecraft.

The dark side is so-called because it always faces away from Earth
due to gravitational forces, with the 'dark' in the name historically
imputing that we can't see or understand it, rather than it actually
being physically dark. But that meaning will become even more
anachronistic soon, with China's mission set to bring us into direct
contact with the Moon's most mysterious territory.

"The Chang'e-4's lander and rover will make a soft landing on the
back side of the Moon, and will carry out in-place and patrolling
surveys," Liu Jizhong, China's lunar exploration chief, told the press.
China's swiftly developing space program initially replicated feats
already achieved by the US and others, but this latest mission provides
growing evidence that in recent years the nation has become serious
about setting records of its own.

"The implementation of the Chang'e-4 mission has helped our country
make the leap from following to leading in the field of lunar
exploration," said Liu.

In Dan Brown’s books, Galileo Galilei is mentioned as one of the
Illuminati, a precursor, the perfect symbol of the supremacy of
scientific ideals over religious obscurantism. Galileo Galilei lived before the birth of the Illuminati and never wrote “Diagramma Veritatis.”

Yes, Galileo Galilei was just a scientist who, among other things, discovered and
proudly asserted that the Earth was revolving around the Sun -- which totally pissed off the Roman Catholic Church.

So friends, as you can see, Galileo wasn't the Illuminati, he was only the Antichrist.

Wednesday

In November 1968, the Beatles released their classic, eponymous titled double album--the one noted for its entirely white cover. Would that John Lennon and his then paramour Yoko Ono had opted for a similarly stark design for their own effort, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, which was unleashed on an unsuspecting public the very same month. That way, the only horror would have been the relentless sounds of Yoko screeching over John's experimental instrumentation. But the couple went for an album cover they considered as avant-garde as their "music": a shudder-inducing, full frontal nude photograph of themselves, with another shot on the flip side featuring their saggy rear ends.

John Lennon said the album was recorded in one night, just before the adulterous couple first went to bed together (although given Yoko's yelping vocal spasms, it sounds like it could have just as easily been recorded during). "She was doing her funny voices and I was pushing all different buttons on my tape recorder and getting sound effects," he recalled. "And then as the sun rose we made love and that was Two Virgins."

EMI, the Beatles' record label, refused to have anything to do with the finished product, which was released independently. ("Why don't you use Paul (McCartney) instead?" EMI chairman Joseph Lockwood reportedly commented on the nudie cover. "He's much better looking.") Meanwhile, police in numerous jurisdictions did the public a huge favor by seizing album shipments, deeming the cover pornographic. For those who did get their hands on Two Virgins, whatever message John and Yoko were trying to convey was lost in the noise. "Dilettante garbage, simply," Lester Bangs wrote in Rolling Stone. Still, the couple was successful in one aspect:

"What we did purposely is not have a pretty photographer," Lennon said later, "not have it lighted so as we looked sexy or good...We used the straightest, most unflattering picture just to show we were human."Bad Days in History, pg 428

The Beatles' single "Hey Jude" hits the top of the American music charts on this day in 1968. Over seven mintuets long, it was the longest song ever to reach No. 1, a record it holds to this day. Paul McCartney wrote the song about the same time that John Lennon was divorcing his wife Cynthia. McCartney once claimed the song started out as "Hey Jules," and was meant to console John and Cynthia's son, Julian. Some listeners hear the song as a prophetic lament for the approaching end of the English rock group themselves, who split up in early 1970.

Here's the deal, John and Yoko did their own thing and were blasted by the liberal public for doing so. Yoko was a strong, independent woman, and we liberals hated her for it.

No where can this be seen more than in their performance of the song "Instant Karma." Note how Yoko is keeping her mouth shut, her eyes covered, and knitting like a good woman. Can it be any clearer who John is singing about when he says, "Instant Karma's going to get you...going to knock you off your feet...."

Tuesday

Aliens: New University Course Teaches 'Ufology'

A Turkish university is including a new course called “Ufology and Exopolitics” in its curriculum. The Dogan News Agency reported that the purpose of the class is to prepare students for the possibility of extraterrestrial contact. “We believe representatives from the world and extraterrestrial civilizations will soon be making official contact with each other. We think…

Monday

According to Ali Winters and his website "Z3 News End-Time News Before It Happens," President Obama made a pact with the devil on this day in 2015 which caused "the shooting that happened on the same day at a Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado."

According to Mr. Winters, Obama caused this shooting so he could pass new gun laws!

I couldn't find a photo of Ali Winters, but did find one of Ali Soufan, close enough I'm sure.

Ali Soufan

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On this day in 1868, U.S. general George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on peaceful Cheyenne living along the Washita River in Texas, destroying the village and killing 103 Native Americans.

Stores across the United States report being flooded by sometimes-violent shoppers trying to buy the first demon possessed doll in history.

Cabbage Patch Doll

The dolls were originally invented by a Kentucky artist named Martha Nelson Thomas. Martha first started making them in the early 70s and
would "adopt" them out to family and friends. The dolls eventually
caught the eye of Xavier Roberts, a Georgia man who ran a gift shop.
After Martha denied him permission to sell her dolls, he stole the
design and began making his own versions. Martha never saw a penny.

Sunday

On November 26, 1095, Pope Urban II issued his famous war cry, "Deus
volt," or "God wills it," thus launching the first of seven major
crusades against Muslims in the Holy Land. Five and a half centuries
later, the Vatican was still beating the war drum -- only this time,
Christians were being urged to kill Christians in the Thirty Years' War,
one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, fought in
the midst of the so-called Enlightenment, when some of history's worst
acts of human depravity were committed.

Like his
predecessor from the Dark Ages, Pope Innocent X considered the war God's
work, and he was thus immensely displeased when relative harmony was
restored to the devastated continent with the Treaty of Westphalia.
Indeed, the Vicar of Christ was so unhappy with the peace compromising
his own interests that on November 26, 1648 -- exactly 553 years after
Urban II's call to slaughter--he issued a blistering condemnation of the
treaty. It was, he declared, "mull, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust,
damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time"--
just as Jesus would have wanted.

Among
the huge numbers of gold and priceless artifacts that were discovered
that November 26th, 1922, emerged also the curse which supposedly
threatened to strike down anyone who disturbed the dead pharaoh's tomb. Apparently, at the precise moment that the pharaoh's resting place
was opened, Carnarvon's dog back in England let out a howl and died. Lord Carnarvon himself, who had been present at the opening of the
tomb, suddenly died just weeks later from a mosquito bite. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a
great believer in the occult, got involved, publicly stating that he
suspected that a great curse had been unleashed.

Around
this time every year in the Basari villages of Senegal, the young men
are initiated into manhood with elaborate rituals, competitions,
dancing, and feasting. On this day in Nepal, the goddess Gujeswari Jatra is honored by Hindus and Buddhists. The day's activities include
prayers, music, and songs of praise to Gujeswari.

Saturday

So
you think Donald Trump is the first ultra-nationalist who used his
entertainment background and no past government experience to try and
take over a government?... Well, yes, maybe Trump is the first to
succeed, but he wasn't the first to try.

It had
been a while since the first Japanese samurai ritually disemboweled
himself in the 12th century. And though the practice, known as seppuku,
had largely fallen out of favor eight centuries later, the
Nobel-nominated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (real name Kimitake
Hiraoka) spectacularly revived it on November 25, 1970.

The
novelist, who had a sideline as a successful film star, had emerged as
an ultranationalist determined to revive Japan's pre-World War II glory
by attempting a coup and shouting such pharses as "壁を作る--build a wall" and "日本初--Japan
first." He and a handful of fellow fanatics managed to take over the
Defense Ministry--not by storming it, but as a celebrity from a hit TV
show who simply waltzed in with sword in hand.

After
tying the stunned commandant to his chair, Mishima stepped outside his
office and onto a balcony. There he tried to deliver a rousing speech
to the soldiers massed below, but he was drowned out by jeers. Taken
aback yet undeterred by the rude reception of "lock her up" -- sorry,
that's the America quake, not the Japanese one -- Mishima declared, "I
am going to shout 'banzai' for the emperor," then went back into the
commandant's office to sacrifice himself--samurai-style--for the cause.

Cleanly gutting himself proved problematic, however. Traditionally the task was handled by another samurai, known as a kaishakunin,
who was on hand to swiftly decapitate his disabled companion at the
moment of his agony. That role was left to Masakatsu Morita. But after
several botched attempts to slice off Mishima's head, Morita proved to
be a most ineffective kaishakunin. The task was finally completed by
Hiroyasu Koga, who then proceeded to behead Morita after his own
seppuku.

Alas, the whole spectacle was for naught. As
Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato said of Mishima, "I can only think
he went out of his mind."

The
only son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis as born in Washington, D.C., on this day in 1960. John F.
Kennedy, Jr., had a very public life as a baby: The newspapers and
national magazines called him "John-John." The world wept when he
saluted his father's casket as it rode by before millions of television
viewers. He quietly studied law and worked at the New York district
attorney's office for a few years before he came before the public eye
once again as the publisher of George magazine. Tragically, he,
his wife, Caroline Bessette, and his sister-in-law died in a flying
accident in 1999 on their way to joining the Kennedy clan on Martha's
Vineyard, Massachusetts.

In
1867 dynamite is patented in the U.S. on this date by Swedish chemist
Alfred Nobel. Extremely concerned about the potential harmful uses of
his invention, he eventually created the Nobel Prize to promote advances
toward peace.

Friday

3.2 Million years ago, Lucy died. Her remains were found on this day in 1974. Before Lucy, it was widely believed that hominins evolved big brains
first, and then became bipedal later. Lucy, however, was clearly built
for bipedal walking — an extremely rare adaptation for mammals — and yet
her skull only had space for a brain about the size of a chimpanzee's.
Her cranial capacity was less than 500 cubic centimeters, or roughly
one-third as big as that of a modern human.

What finding Lucy proved to the world was that there were more than one early human species living at the same time with the ever-so-crazy Neanderthals party tribes -- I have my sources -- and in a close geographical proximity too. Combined this finding with the more recent finding in 2011 of even another species, the Australopithecus Deyiremeda, and there can be no doubt that this area of the world was a lab of human test done by none other than... well, as Giorgio A. Tsoukalos would say: Ancient Aliens!

On or around this day each year, the holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated throughout the United States. The tradition of the Thanksgiving feast began in Plymouth Colony in 1621 with the Pilgrims' celebration of their first year's harvest. In modern times, the festivities generally include parades, footballs games, gluttony, and obsessive shopping... all the spiritual priorities of a nation not thankful for shit.

Thursday

On 6 September in the year 1620 Julian calendar (16 September in our calendar), the Mayflower set off. Out of its 102 passengers, only about 40 were the pilgrims looking for a new place to worship God in their very special way that had them laughed out of London (like Malvolio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night).

The word "Pilgrim" comes from the Middle English pelegrim and Old French pelegrin, which both derive from the Latin pereginus, "stranger." And strangers they were. Their beliefs were that if a storm sank the Mayflower, God would save them just as He had provided a whale to save Jonah. Fortunately, before the assistance of a UFO spaceship was needed, they spotted land on 9 November (19 November our calendar).

They had arrived at Cape Cod and weren't safe yet from the dangerous shoals and roaring breakers, but on November 21, 1620 (our time used from now on), they entered the harbor at what is now Provincetown on the tip of the Cape.

Now, here's where the whole conquering Brits gets rather murky, for without any negotiating with the Americans -- who, we'll see were already in the new land -- the 102 visitors agreed to get off the ship before their destination of the mouth of Hudson river -- which had been discovered years earlier by Henry Hudson and was part of the New England claims England had shoved down the Native American's throats, and the land grant they all had in their little pink fingers. In true conquering European form, the 102 passengers (40 of which were considered Saints because they said so) didn't even live up to the land grant they had from the New England council and instead landed where they were and the 41 Saints signed what is now known as the Mayflower Contract, which was an agreement to establish a "Civil body Politic (temporary government)" and to be bound by its laws. "They would enact "just and equal laws for the good of the colony." The binding agreement was modeled on a Separatist Church Covenant and became the basis of government in the colony. Conveniently, it also allowed the minority 41 Saints to elect John Carver as their first Governor.

By December 16th, the squatters had spotted a dozen or so native Americans and posted lookouts on them from the woods. Eventually, the real Americans would fire arrows at the pink-fleshed beings who returned with musket fire which ran the Americans off. The Pilgrims then took their corn back to the ship. A year later, after the Pilgrims had negotiated a peace with Chief Massasoit, they would return the stolen corn in what is now considered the first Thanksgiving.

Not quite the story we were taught in school, but close enough. Actually, it would be 10 years later when the shit really hit the fan for the real Americans, for the Puritans were coming, and their form of Christianity -- which would eventually evolved into the KKK and the current Christian church which measures its faith on how much you hate gays -- would consider the Americans to be savages in the way of Jesus' country.

So, while you are eating your corn and turkey today and praying thanks to baby Jesus, consider the real Americans for once... and how you've took their land much as the UFO Aliens might do to us with universal justifications because we are such hypocrites.

With Prohibition now the law of the land, Congress closed a lingering loophole with the Willis-Campbell Act, which strictly limited the amount of liquor that physicians could prescribe for medical purposes. On November 23, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the bill--no doubt with a chuckle, as the man ultimately charged with enforcing Prohibition kept the White House cabinets filled with intoxicating "medicine," always at the ready for the enjoyment of the president and his corrupt, poker-playing pals.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the tart-tongued daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, described one evening as a guest in the Harding White House: "The study was filled with cronies...trays with bottles containing every imaginable brand of whiskey stood about, cards and poker chips ready at hand--a general atmosphere of waistcoats unbuttoned, feet on the desk, and spittoons alongside."

A year after signing the restrictive law, the liquor-swilling president stood before Congress and delivered this breathtakingly hypocritical message: "Let men who are rending the moral fiber of the republic through easy contempt for the prohibition law, because they think it restricts their personal liberty, remember that they set the example and breed a contempt for law which will ultimately destroy the republic."

Wednesday

In the hours after the Kennedy assassination, after Lee Harvey Oswald
shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit and was identified as
the president’s assassin, a Secret Service officer named Mike Howard was
dispatched to Oswald’s apartment. Howard found a little green address
book, and on its 17th page under the heading “I WILL KILL” Oswald listed
four men: an FBI agent named James Hosty; a right-wing general, Edwin Walker; and Vice
President Richard Nixon. At the top of the list was the governor of
Texas, John Connally. Through Connally’s name, Oswald had drawn a
dagger, with blood drops dripping downward.

Special Agent Howard turned the address book over to the FBI and,
ultimately, to the Warren Commission. Only some time later did he learn
that the list with its hugely important insight into the killer’s motive
had been torn out of the book.

I
didn’t hear about Howard until after I published my book “The
Accidental Victim” three years ago on the 50th anniversary of the
assassination. In it I argue a circumstantial case that it was Connally,
not John F. Kennedy, who was Oswald’s target in Dallas. It is the story
of a smoldering grudge in which Oswald came to associate Connally with
all the setbacks in his disastrous, hopeless life.

In her testimony to the Warren Commission,
Oswald’s wife, Marina, definitively named Connally and not Kennedy as
her husband’s target.

This
grudge got started in January 1962. Oswald was in the Soviet Union,
where he’d gone after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps.
When the Marines learned he wanted to defect, Oswald’s discharge was
summarily downgraded to undesirable. (The defection was never
consummated.) Oswald was angry and for good reason; his actions after
his discharge had nothing to do with his three years as a Marine.

By early 1962, Oswald was disenchanted with
Soviet life and wanted to return home. He was now saddled with a wife,
Marina, and a child, and he knew that someone with a ninth-grade
education, who had spent time in Russia and had an undesirable discharge
on his record, would have few prospects in America.

Oswald
wrote a heartfelt plea to Connally, a fellow Texan and the head of the
Navy Department, the civilian overseer of the Marines. In poignant terms
Oswald asked Connally to redress what was a transparent miscarriage of
justice. What he got back a month later, in February 1962, was a classic
bureaucratic brushoff. The dismissive letter arrived in an envelope
with Connally’s smiling face on the front, bursting from a Texas star
and announcing his bid for the Texas governorship.

In the
months after Oswald’s return to America, his worst fears were realized.
He did, indeed, have serious trouble finding and holding jobs in Texas.
According to the testimony of Russian emigres in Dallas who knew him
during this period, every time his discharge came up in a job interview,
Oswald froze, and his blame of Connally deepened.

Oswald's Green Book

In her
testimony to the Warren Commission, Oswald’s wife, Marina, definitively
named Connally and not Kennedy as her husband’s target. She repeated
this belief in testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee on
Assassinations in 1978. Dallas emigres also testified to Oswald’s
obsession with Connally. Moreover, there was ample testimony that Oswald
bore no animus toward Kennedy. Indeed, he admired JFK’s important
initiatives like the president’s efforts at detente with Russia.

Why was this evidence on motive
ignored and buried in the official investigations? More pointedly, why
is Oswald’s little green book – which I’ve examined in the National
Archives – missing that pivotal page? For many years, in a community
college class he teaches, retired Special Agent Howard has put forward
his view of the assassination: Connally, not Kennedy, was Oswald’s
target.

President Kennedy wasn't the only victim in the Dallas motorcade on
22 Nov 1963. Governor Connally, riding in the "jump seat" ahead of
Kennedy, was also shot. His wounds included an entry wound in the back
near the right shoulder, a broken rib, an exit wound in the chest, a
shattered wrist caused by a bullet entering from the dorsal (back) side,
and a fragment lodged in his thigh.

The Warren Commission, by necessity if there was to be a single
shooter, said that all of these wounds were caused by a single bullet.
Furthermore, this bullet was said to be the same one which had passed
first through JFK. The bullet said to cause all 7 wounds in two men is
Commission Exhibit 399, found on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital in
virtually pristine condition, with apparently no blood or tissue on it.
CE 399 is flattened somewhat, and rifling marks show it clearly had been
fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle at some point. But was it fired
earlier and then planted?

Defenders of the single bullet theory note that a large entrance
wound in Connally's back is evidence of a "tumbling bullet," which could
occur if the bullet first passed through JFK. But critics point out
that the notion of a large entrance wound is incorrect, and is based on
the enlarged debrided wound after surgery. Connally's surgeon Dr. Robert
Shaw measured the long axis of the original elliptical entrance wound
at a much smaller 1.5 centimeters. As Milicent Cranor has pointed out,
this is virtually identical in size and shape to Kennedy's skull
entrance wound as measured at autopsy, and "No one has suggested Kennedy
was hit in the head with a tumbling bullet."

Among the many problems with the single bullet theory and Connally's
wounds in particular, there is also the issue of whether the metal
fragments taken from Connally's wrist and left in his leg could possibly
have come from the nearly intact bullet CE 399. JFK autopsy surgeon
Commander Humes told the Commission "I can't conceive of where they came
from this missile." There is also some doubt about whether the
fragments now in evidence (CE 842) comprise all that was removed from
Governor Connally's wrist.

In Norse tradition, today is the festival of Ydalir, the Valley of the Yews, and falls under the rule of Ullr, whose names means "Brilliant one." Ullr is the god of legal disputes, sacred oaths, hunting, skiing, and winter. Stepson of the god Thor and son of the Earth mother Sif and an unknown father, Ullr is thought to have giant blood.

Tuesday

Few monarchs in history reigned as long as Austria's Franz Josef, or endured quite as much heartache. During his nearly seven decade rule, the emperor saw his wife, Elisabeth, stabbed to death by an anarchist; his son, Rudolf, commit suicide with his mistress in a lurid sex scandal; his brother Maximilian, the puppet emperor of Mexico, executed by firing squad; his nephew Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo; and countless other relatives bring shame upon the glorious House of Habsburg--including another brother, Ludwig Viktor, a flamboyant cross-dresser known as Lutziwutzi, whose public shenanigans forced the emperor to finally banish him from Vienna, along with his nephew Otto, a syphilitic prone to public nudity.

Longevity alone would explain at least some of the emperor's seemingly endess stream of sorrows, but a supposed curse by a Counte4ss Karolyi, whose son was executed during the Hungarian uprising at the beginning of Franz Josef's reign, may have made things that much worse. "May heaven and hell blast your happiness," the countess reportedly shrieked at the young sovereign at a state ball in Vienna; "may your family be exterminated; may you be smitten in the persons of those you love beat; may your children be brought to ruin and your life wrecked; and yet may you live on in lonely, unbroken, horrible grief, to tremble when you recall the name of Karolyi!"

So effective was the countess's curse-- or maybe it was just cruel fate--that even in death poor Franz Josef couldn't catch a break. After succumbing to pneumonia on November 21, 1916, at age 86, the emperor was embalmed using a newfangled technique that distorted his features to such an extent that his coffin had to be kept closed--depriving his grieving subjects of one last look at the sovereign who had ruled over them for so many years, and perhaps providing Countess Karolyi with her final triumph."

On this date in Mesoamerica, the ancient Mayan people held a joyous festival honoring Kukulcan, "the feathered snake whose path is the waters." Later merged with Quetzalcoatl, "the plumed serpent," and identified with the planet Venus, Kuklcan was a god of wisdom and fertility and the inventor of agriculture and the Mayan calendar.

Monday

On this day in 1993, a filibuster ended in the U.S. Senate. Despite the use of this effective verbal tactic of running your mouth to avoid a vote, The Brady Bill passed with a vote of 63 to 36 in favor. The law imposed a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases throughout the United States. The NRA said it would be the death of our freedom to bear arms. Charleston Heston actually started wearing diapers to contain his anger. Judging from this year's gun-violence in the USA, the Brady Bill has done little to protect us from idiots with guns.

High-ranking Nazis go on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, on this day in 1945 for atrocities committed during World War II. The proceedings lasted 10 months. Twelve architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death, seven others were sentenced to prison for 10 years, and 18 were sent to the US under Operation Paper-Clip to build rockets in the shape of men's privates.

This is the feast day of the Greek proconsul Praetextatus and his wife Paulina, who were guardians of the Eleusinian mysteries. In 364 C.E., they resisted the order of Roman Christian Emperor Valentinian to suppress the very ancient, sacred Greek pagan rites. Praetextatus allowed the mysteries to be performed as if the emperor's edict wasn't valid.

Friday

On this date in 1968, US sports fans were tuned to the one of the most exciting games of the season -- an epic clash between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, during which the two teams had traded the lead eight times. Wit little more than a minute left to play, the Jets kicked a 26-yard field goal that gave them a 32-29 lead. What happened next was one of the most astonishing climaxes in football history: Oakland managed to score twice in nine seconds to win the game 43-32. But no one saw it! Instead, at precisely 7 p.m. (EST) Heidi began her wholesome romp through the Alps in NBC's remake of Johanna Spyri's classic children's story.

In 1941, Joseph C. Grew, ambassador to Japan, cables the U.S. State Department that he heard that Japan had "planned to attack Pearl Harbor." -- to which the U.S. Government said: "Keep your mouth shut, we know -- (paraphrase)."

This is the feast day of Roman Catholic Saint Hilda, the daughter of a king of Northumbria. At the age of thirty-three, Hilda entered the Chelles Monastery in France. Later, she returned to Northumbria to become abbess of Hartlepool. In time, Hilda was named head of the double monastery of Streaneschalch, at Whitby. Saint Hilda is regarded as one of England's greatest women.

Thursday

On November 16, 1849, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and a group of fellow intellectuals were condemned to the firing squad for their participation in activities the repressive Russian state government considered subversive. For well over a month, the specter of death loomed implacably. Then, on the appointed day, the condemned were taken to the place of execution at St. Petersburg's frigid Semenovsky Square, where three stakes had been erected for the occasion.

"The horrible, immeasurably horrible minutes of awaiting death began," Dostoyevsk wrote. "It was cold, so terribly cold. They removed not only our coats, but our jackets. And it was minus twenty degrees."

As Dostoyevsky and the others stood shivering upon a black-draped scaffold awaiting their fate, the men of the first group were tied to the stakes and hoods placed over their heads. "We were taken in threes," the writer recalled. "I was in the second group. I had no more than a minute left to live." Yet just as the firing squad raised their rifles and took aim, a sudden reprieve came from the tsar. Rather than a lethal lesson in the perils of independent thought, it was a cruel charade with the same message, orchestrated by Tsar Nicholas himself.

"I received the news of the termination of the execution dully," Dostoyevsky remembered. "There was no joy at returning to the living. People around me were shouting and making noise. But I didn't care. I had already lived through the worst. Yes, the very worst. Wretched Grigoryev went mad...How did the others survive? I don't know. We didn't even catch cold."

It was only after being returned to his prison cell that Dostoyevsky came to fully embrace the joy of having his life restored-- even though he now faced four years of hard labor in Siberia, followed by a forced induction into the army. He was alive. And Russian literature would be far richer for it--with Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and the other classics yet to be written.

In 1722 on this date, Jack Sheppard, a burglar from London, England, is hanged at Tyburn in front of a crowd believed to number 200,000. Sheppard, who was only 22, had become a popular hero, immortalized in songs and stories, for his exploits and four escapes from prison.

In 1798, Kentucky becomes the first state to nullify an act of the U.S. Congress, specifically the Lien and Sedition Acts, through the Kentucky Resolutions, written by Thomas Jefferson. The Resolutions were a severe attack on a broad interpretation of the Constitution that would have extended the powers of the federal government over the states.

In 1945, the United States imports 88 German scientists (Operation Paperclip) to assist in developing rocket technology. Most of these men had served under the Nazi regime, and critics questioned the morality of the move.

In 1993, Russian leader Vladimir Lenin's mausoleum in Moscow is shut down by the Russian authorities.

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In India on or near this date each year, which is the beginning of the Hindu New Year, the people celebrate Dewali, the Festival of Lights. Candles are lit to honor Dharani, the wealth-giving, luck-bringing, abundance aspect of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Homes are decorated with ancient good-fortune ritual designs called kolams.

Wednesday

A woman who saved thousands of infants' lives in the city of New York was born on this day in 1873. Public health worker and doctor Sara Josephine Baker dared to go into the homes of tenement dwellers in the city's Lower East Side to bring health education to the people who needed it most. She taught immigrant and poor mothers proper hygiene and sanitation methods, provided prenatal care and nutrition, and even introduced the concept of baby clothes with front openings to reduce the potential for suffocation, which was a leading cause of infant mortality. With her work, New York City's infant mortality rate became the nation's lowest, dropping from 144 out of 1,000 cases per yer in 1908 to 66 out of 1,000 per year by 1923.

On this day in 2002, Myra Hindley died of a heart attach at the age of 60. Hindley is attributed with committing the most painful crimes of the 20th century. On 6 May, 1966, Hindley and her lover, Ian Brady, wee both jailed for life for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, aged ten and seventeen-year-old Edward Evans. Brady was also found guilty of murdering John Kilbride, aged twelve - a crime in which Hindley was convicted of being an accessory. They became known as the infamous Moors Murders, after the bodies of the victims were discovered in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham.

The public was shocked, not only at the age of those killed, but also at the age of the murders themselves. Hindley was just 21 at the time of John Kilbride's death. The betrayal of innocence that these crimes represented caused the media to cast Hindley and Brady as incarnations of pure evil, and Hindley especially was entrenched as a hate-figure with British society when in 1995 a portrait of her, constructed from the imprints of children's hands was displayed at the 'Sensation' exhibition in London.

In Japan, Shichi-go-San, a centuries-old Shinto festival, is performed annually on this date. Also known as the Seven-Five-Three, it is a huge birthday celebration for children who have reched these ages. Parents take their youngsters to local shrines for the blessings of the gods and goddesses and candy decorated with symbols of good fortune.